Except for some of the pandemic years we’ve taken a road trip each year since 2014. That’s when I see a trip to Yellowstone in my blog posts. There were a couple of years more recently where the road trip became a sheep themed trip. That’s different. It’s hard to stop for a hike when you have a trailer load of sheep. So this was planned to be a regular road trip. The major difference is that after last year’s trip the green truck is no longer an option for our travel. It was easy to crawl in the back of the truck for sleeping, but we’d need a tent this year if we were going to camp.

We began the trip on Tuesday, July 29.

The only part of the trip we had planned was to be in Trinidad, Colorado Friday night and Saturday for the opening of the art show sponsored by Cowgirl Artists of American. Other than that we were going to figure it out as we went along.

We were following Highway 50 and our first stop was along the Pony Express National Historical Trail. The Pony Express operated for only 18 months before being made obsolete in 1861 by the telegraph. But in that time young men traveled on horseback 1800 miles in about ten days. Stations were about 10 miles apart and there are remnants of some of these along the route.

This station probably started with two rooms but additional rooms added as the telegraph came in. The site had been completely covered with sand and was rediscovered in 1975.

This site is part of the Sand Mountain Recreation area managed by BLM, featuring 3-1/2 mile long Sand Mountain.

This is a popular OHV destination.

Continuing on through Nevada.

We stopped at this Petroglyph site…

…and walked the trail to find some of the petroglyphs.

It was late in the day when we drove into Ely, Nevada. This open pit copper mine is west of Ely. We found a place to camp in the mountains just west of town.